My feedback on the method of obtaining relics in Endwalker

[Mithron]

Let me start off by saying I stated several times how much I disliked Eureka and Bozja, and would rather run Tamtara normal in Duty Finder synced a thousand times than do anything in either of those two areas again. And I still hold to that. I do not like Eureka or Bozja, and I especially don't like how difficult it is to do them when they're not relevant any more and depend on others to participate. I'd rather just solo queue Duty Finder, get 4-24 randoms that are all there from Roulettes, or grind some Fates I can do my self for small progress.

I stated several times how much I prefer being able to do a variety of tasks to accrue progress towards my relic, even if it's small and incremental, so that I may choose the way I grind them. I quite enjoy the ARR and HW relic methods of obtaining, having done several of each, many of which while they were relevant. Mostly because I can do them with a variety of methods, rather than "just Eurkea" or "just Bozja."

So, Endwalker was closer to what I like but still missed the mark on several things. The first, and most obvious, is that 1500 Tomes per "step" is really small. Just a few days of Dailies is enough to fully cover a single relic from beginning to end, and you can do that even faster with things like Hunts or even Crystaline Conflict. I do like all the ways you can get Tomes to cover these so I'm not limited to a dead zone like Eureka, but instead of using Tomes, I think it would've been better to have unique currencies that you obtain much slower doing the same things. This is why steps like the Books, or Atma, or Crystal Sand/Umbrite were all much better. Even after they had their amounts reduced, they're still grindy enough to be long term goals and payoff. And the methods of obtaining them are still viable today without needing external resources like Discord groups or depending on other peoples' interests.

I'll leave the discussion about the aesthetics of the relics in Endwalker to a minimum, but they're mostly pretty terrible especially compared to how good the ARR/HW relics are. There's only a small handful of SB-EW relics I enjoy, and none of them are final stage. So far, most of the best EW relics are the step right before the final. The DRK one in particular is pretty good, because it has two separate glows on it at the same time instead of pulsating between two colors without being a truly abhorrent shape. Well done, I like this one a lot!

So, my main feedback is that no more forced Eureka or Bozja ever again, but also make it harder than just 1500 Tomes per step. Good job on letting us choose our methods of grind, keep that up. The Manderville quests were great and a treat, I enjoyed them in EW almost as much as I enjoyed the other Hildibrand episodes, another good job.

That is my feedback, thank you for no Eureka/Bozja, but make it harder than 1500 Tomes.

[Jeeqbit]

Personally, I'd like them tied to the new Field Operation. But a fair compromise would be to do it like Bozja where people can choose to do it in the Field Operation or by farming boring old content like Crystal Tower and leves.

I think the difference compared to Bozja should be that it is slightly more efficient to do it in the Field Operation, but if someone is determined enough to do it via old content then they can.

The problem in Bozja was that the drops were RNG whereas doing old content it was guaranteed, which didn't make logical sense if the goal was to make the new content enticing.

[Mithron]

The problem in Bozja was that

The problem with Bozja was that it was bad and not designed for longevity. Again, I'd rather do Tamtara normal a thousand times in Duty Finder than anything in Bozja.

[Boblawblah]

Assuming this is in good faith, and not trolling, I'll say that I would love everyone to be able to do whatever they enjoy to get progress towards relic weapons. PvP? Sure, go for it. Island Sanctuary? Yup, that's alright too. PvE dungeons with trusts? Sure! Hardcore raiding? That too. Field operations? Yep yep.

Everyone gets the kind of ice cream they want, they just pay for it a bit differently.

[Striker44]

So, Endwalker was closer to what I like but still missed the mark on several things. The first, and most obvious, is that 1500 Tomes per "step" is really small. Just a few days of Dailies is enough to fully cover a single relic from beginning to end, and you can do that even faster with things like Hunts or even Crystaline Conflict. I do like all the ways you can get Tomes to cover these so I'm not limited to a dead zone like Eureka, but instead of using Tomes, I think it would've been better to have unique currencies that you obtain much slower doing the same things. This is why steps like the Books, or Atma, or Crystal Sand/Umbrite were all much better. Even after they had their amounts reduced, they're still grindy enough to be long term goals and payoff. And the methods of obtaining them are still viable today without needing external resources like Discord groups or depending on other peoples' interests.

I wonder how much the over-abundance of classes has to do with this...personally, steps like Atma are the reason I only ever progressed one ARR relic beyond that step. Endless FATE grinding for a low-% drop that you need a dozen of? No thanks. And now there's probably about double the classes you could progress.

The tomestone approach, on the other hand, has done what was likely its design job of enticing me to play more. Having something straightforward that I can make steady progress on while doing a wide variety of content makes me...well...do more content! I've done more roulettes each time a new relic phase begins, continued doing hunt trains well after I stopped in ShB, and so on. Meanwhile, I never even finished one single ShB relic because Bozja.

[Jeeqbit]

The problem with Bozja was that it was bad and not designed for longevity.

Actually, it was. It allowed you to farm long-term for the books that get the mount. There is also a rare mount drop from Dalriada. You can farm skirmishes for a really long time to grind extra stat boosts and that was intended for the hardcore crowd, because they would have to know that most casual players aren't going to grind the damage/HP/healing buffs.

But I agree that Bozja wasn't ideal for me personally. I preferred Eureka, because having everyone waiting with eachother to spawn NMs was great for social interaction and there were lots of rewards to get from different types of farms, treasure hunts with rare rewards and bosses that drop rare rewards that can boost your stats and element capability.

In Bozja, the skirmish farms do get a bit samey like farming FATEs, but CEs do save it a bit because CEs are really good.

[Fawkes]

I'd prefer something like Bozja, but also I find the 1500 tomes to be too much. It's boring to just grind tomes not doing unique content, I don't want to do more World of Darkness or do PvP after getting all the rewards for the season. Also every step shouldn't have been the same 1500, it should have been like 1000-2000-2500-500 or something. Even though it's the same amount of tomes it has a different psychological effect to have the final step be a little "victory lap".

I guess it's a least nice that there's a mog tome event starting so I can grind that and relics at the same time.

[Supersnow845]

I’m not sure how people can argue field content isn’t designed for longevity when you can literally go into both field content zones now and be able to do everything in them that you could do in them day 1

Hell both zones are more active than most of the content EW introduced, if field content isn’t an example of content that’s been correctly evergreened that’s not in a roulette I literally cannot think of an example of something that is

[Jeeqbit]

I’m not sure how people can argue field content isn’t designed for longevity when you can literally go into both field content zones now and be able to do everything in them that you could do in them day 1

Hell both zones are more active than most of the content EW introduced, if field content isn’t an example of content that’s been correctly evergreened that’s not in a roulette I literally cannot think of an example of something that is

It's very true how they are all still active. The interesting thing is that people used to say it was going to die after the expansion was over. I always disagreed with them because there was evidence to the contrary even at the end of Stormblood.

At the end of Stormblood, grinding old relic weapons was a massive endgame content for people. ARR and anima weapon grinds were done all the time by people. It was in PF and it was mentioned in FCs and linkshells all the time. It was a thing a casual player could just work towards over a long period of time after work, without being pressured to spend a certain amount of time on it per day. Although you wouldn't think Eureka or Bozja could be done long-term due to it being large-scale content, the fact of how old relic weapon grinds are a popular content allowed me to know they would not be dead in the long-term.

My prediction was Eureka would initially sort of die, then grow in popularity as people (especially new and returning players) wanted to grind their relics, as well as due to nerfs and that all seems to be what happened.

[Burmecia]

I would love everyone to be able to do whatever they enjoy to get progress towards relic weapons. PvP? Sure, go for it. Island Sanctuary? Yup, that's alright too. PvE dungeons with trusts? Sure! Hardcore raiding? That too. Field operations? Yep yep.

Wasn't this almost exactly how Anima, HW relic, was? Yeah, I think I like this method the best, instead of tying relics to Eurekas and Bozjas.